Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to arrangements for storage of developer. In particular, the present invention relates to cleaning apparatuses, process cartridges, and image forming apparatuses.
Description of the Related Art
An electrostatic recording method, an electrophotographic recording method, and the like are widely used in conventional image forming apparatuses such as copying machines and printers. A commonly-known method is a method in which a toner image formed on an image bearing member is transferred onto a recording material to form the toner image on the recording material. In this method, however, there may be a case where the toner image on the image bearing member is incompletely transferred onto the recording material to leave a small amount of toner on the image bearing member. Further, there may be a case where a small amount of toner called fog toner may be developed in a non-image forming portion on the image bearing member.
In a case of using a method in which a charging device is brought into contact with an image bearing member to charge the image bearing member, residual toner on the image bearing member may adhere to the charging device to cause charging failure that may lead to vertical streaks and uneven image density. To address this problem, a cleaning method is commonly used in which an elastic member is brought into contact with the image bearing member to scrape and collect the toner on the image bearing member.
In the foregoing apparatus, the collected toner on the image bearing member is stored in a collected toner storage chamber. Some collected toner storage chambers include a partition plate to secure stiffness to enable appropriate contact of a cleaning blade with an image bearing member and to prevent collected toner from becoming uneven when it is removed from the image forming apparatus and slanted (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 58-203479).
Further, there is a method of conveying collected toner by rotating a screw or a stirrer member (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-133263).
Depending on an image pattern used by a user and the size of a recording medium, however, the amount of toner collected from the image bearing member may become uneven in an axial direction of the image bearing member.